1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to aluminum plate-type heat exchangers of plate type, and more particularly to improved reinforcing means positioned at the outermost ends of such heat exchanger.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional aluminum plate-type heat exchangers are composed a number of combined exchanger sub-units which each comprise side bars which are arranged between opposite ends of parallel and a corrugated fin located in the area between the side bars and the spaced apart plates.
Such heat exchanger sub-units are conventionally joined together by a furnace brazing or dip brazing procedure using flux in order to prevent the aluminum members from oxidizing. With such procedures, however, it is quite difficult and expensive to make and maintain the attached condition of the reinforcing members which must be used at the exposed ends of the heat exchanger, e.g., due to the fact that the layer of brazing material which must be used to join the thick outermost reinforcing member with the adjacent structure is quite difficult to clad onto the thick reinforcing member.
On the other hand, a fluxless brazing process for aluminum has recently come into practical use. The fluxless brazing process has been proposed to eliminate the drawbacks caused by the use of flux e.g., the drawbacks of expensive cost of and extensive labor needed in washing the brazed aluminum members so as to reduce the strong corrosiveness of the flux to the aluminum. However, even when a heat exchanger is fabricated by using a fluxless brazing process, the reinforcing means at the outermost portion must be composed similarly to the situation when using a conventional flux brazing process, i.e., brazed by using a brazing layer composed of a separate brazing foil or a brazing material cladded on one surface of the brazing means. Thus, the multiplicity and complexity of member manipulations are not improved when using such a fabrication process.
A principal object of the present invention is to provide a plate-type heat exchanger which eliminates the above-mentioned disadvantages and which can be fabricated conveniently and inexpensively.